youtube-parner-stats

Several months ago, we ran a story estimating that ten independent YouTube stars were making over $100,000 a year, based off data provided by TubeMogul.

Here are the assumptions that were made:

We only took into account revenue from banner ads since not all partners have pre-roll or overlay ads on their videos.

YouTube banner ads have a two-second load delay; so, around 2.59% of viewers click away before the ad can load.

CPM for the banner ads are $1.50.

YouTube is splitting ad revenue with partners 50-50.

Some YouTubers on that list weren’t happy with our estimates and claimed that the numbers were “incorrect overall.” In wanting to get the best estimates, we’ve made a few changes to the formula.

After speaking with several YouTube partners about the matter, we’ve reduced the banner ad CPM down to $0.85. That means for every 1,000 channel views, a YouTube partner receives $0.85.

Banner ads also cannot be loaded and displayed on embedded videos; TubeMogul found that an average of 6.5% of a YouTube partner’s views come from its videos being embedded on other sites.

Views for each YouTube partner is taken across all their channels. For example, Shane Dawson garnered over 508 million views in 2010 across all three of his YouTube channels – ShaneDawsonTV, ShaneDawsonTV2, and Shane.

We’d like to emphasize again that these figures are ESTIMATES of just one revenue stream for these YouTube partners. Taking into account that YouTube didn’t exist six years ago and that it’s partnership program began in May 2007, it’s impressive to see that so many young entrepreneurs are able to support themselves through creative means on the Google-owned video sharing site.

While first-year EMTs make less than $32,000 a year, these YouTubers are raking in figures more than double that amount.

Digital Consigliere

Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.